Permanent forest contract
The continuous forest contract (including continuous forest sales contract or contract of the century ) means an arrangement of the municipal administration union Greater Berlin with the Royal Prussian State for Forest purchase Today's metropolis of 27 March 1915. Berlin , the five years emerged later from the Zweckverband, occurred as a legal successor to the Contract a. The contract created the prerequisite for "Berlin - compared to other megacities - has forest areas of a unique extent."
The component permanent forest in the name refers to the duration of the contract concluded for the acquisition of the forest and does not refer to the term permanent forest as a form of forest use.
Forest acquisition and price
The Zweckverband Groß-Berlin bought forest parts from the Prussian state for 50 million gold marks - a total of around 10,000 hectares - from the foresters 'offices in Grunewald , Tegel , Grünau , and Köpenick , which at that time did not yet belong to Berlin, as well as from the forestry' s Potsdam . The association pledged to neither cultivate nor sell the acquired forest areas, but rather to keep them as recreational areas for the citizens in the long term. Parts of the acquired forest area, such as the Parforceheide , were and are still outside the Berlin city limits in Brandenburg and will be managed again by the Berlin Forestry Offices after the fall of the Wall .
The Zweckverband Groß-Berlin (1911-1920), to which the urban district of Berlin and independent urban districts, rural communities and manor districts such as Charlottenburg , Schöneberg , Steglitz , Köpenick or Reinickendorf belonged, sent a request to the government to acquire forests as early as 1912 and received an offer 11,200 hectares of forest for 179 million gold marks. The association was unable to raise this amount.
According to Hermann Kötschke, the government offers were originally based on a calculation of just under 2 marks per square meter, which was based on the current square meter price for parking spaces. The Zweckverband objected that the price could not be transferred to more distant parts of the forest. The last German Emperor Wilhelm II intervened in the lengthy negotiations that followed and had to agree to any sale of state forest property anyway. Of the final purchase price of 50 million gold marks for 10,000 hectares, the association had to pay 5 million immediately and the rest in 15 annual installments of 3 million each.
Obligation
In an article on Berlin's forest ownership through the ages , Forestry Councilor Martin Klees gave the central content of the contract as follows:
“In the contract, which was concluded on March 27, 1915, regardless of the outbreak of World War I, the Zweckverband Groß-Berlin committed itself to exclusively [acquiring and maintaining larger areas such as forests, parks, meadows that are to be kept free from development , Lakes, etc.] and to preserve their essential parts as forest areas and to use the proceeds from possible sales to acquire corresponding replacement areas. "
Motivations
Health policy reasons
A major reason for the forward-looking forest policy was concern about the endangered public welfare . Since the second half of the 19th century, the demands on forest use had increasingly changed from production to recreational forest . As early as January 1893, the magistrate of the city of Berlin submitted a motion to the minister with the aim of "... for reasons of public health care ... to bring larger areas into our communal property in order to give the growing population of the imperial capital the opportunity to relax in the distant future and to ensure refreshment in the open air and in the forest. " In the almanac “Groß-Berliner Kalender 1913” Richard van der Borght advocated a “forest belt” around the city and emphasized the importance of the forest: “... for air and soil temperature, for quantity and distribution the precipitation, for water storage and swelling, for fixing the weathered soil, for wind protection, for protection against sand drifts and landslides, etc., but especially its value for the health conditions and for the soul and soul of the people. "
Water supply, deforestation
As van der Borght already suggests, another essential reason for the conclusion of the permanent forest contract was to secure the drinking water supply for the rapidly growing Berlin population (quadrupled from 500,000 to 2 million from 1861 to 1910). In the forest areas that were acquired, there were numerous lakes and Laken with the best water quality, such as the Schlachtensee or the Krumme Lanke - lakes, which are now part of Berlin as a matter of course, but which at that time were far outside the city limits. For better Bodendurchnässung the change in forest policy should serve, which provided a natural fairer mixing of the forests, to conclude the 19th century largely of pines - monocultures passed.
In addition, the agglomeration of Berlin , which had 3.8 million inhabitants when it merged in 1920, had the problem of coping with the huge amounts of wastewater from households, breweries, dye works, tanneries and other businesses and factories. Large areas were also required for a future-oriented solution to this problem, especially with the help of sewage fields .
Land Speculation - First Environmental Movement
Furthermore, the escalating soil speculation at this time and the forest destruction caused by it should be contained. Since 1850, but above all during the rapid industrialization of the early imperial era, the areas of the former villages (e.g. Schöneberg, Steglitz, Hermsdorf, Pankow, Lichtenberg ...) that were previously used as arable land, fields or forests had been bought up to a small extent. The forests survived a little longer because they had to be bought from the Prussian king and not traded with individual farmers who could earn fortunes in the process (so-called "Schöneberg Millions Farmers"). The locations in the Grunewald were particularly popular. As an expression of the so-called First German Environmental Movement at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, on the initiative of two Berlin newspapers in 1904, 30,000 signatures were collected in a protest against the destruction of the Grunewald . Both the state and private forest owners took part in the speculation that went further. In 1909, speculation with forest areas reached an extent of around 1,800 hectares. The "Second Berlin Forest Protection Day" on January 16, 1909 vehemently opposed ruthless speculation and forest destruction. According to Martin Klees, the "unrest of the population ... was reflected again in a special print published by a Groß-Lichterfelder Zeitung with the headline:" THE GRUNEWALD IS DEDICATED TO PROBLEM "."
In 1913, two years before the permanent forest contract was signed, Hermann Kötschke complained in the article “Forest protection for Greater Berlin”: “It is particularly unfortunate that z. B. "Prince Friedrich Leopold", who owns the huge forest Düppel- Dreilinden, wants to monetize the magnificent property. The splendid shores of the lake on the small Wannsee, on the Stolper See and on the Griebnitzsee have largely become inaccessible. Only a few rods (floor unit) for the Kleistdenkmal have been saved. Otherwise they say wealth and nobility oblige. "
As the history of the association and the conclusion of the permanent forest contract show, the Prussian state could not escape the pressure of arguments and protests.
Impact of the permanent forest contract today
Through the purchases of the Zweckverband, smaller parallel purchases by the city of Berlin itself and further acquisitions after the merger in 1920, Greater Berlin owned a forest area totaling around 21,500 hectares; at the beginning of the Second World War , the area was around 25,000 hectares. Of this, West Berlin remained around 7,300 hectares after the division of Germany and the founding of the GDR in 1949. After the reunification of the separate parts of the city and the return of the forest areas in the surrounding area by the Treuhand in 1995 (9,500 hectares), Berlin today has 29,000 hectares of forest area with a total area of 89,200 hectares. Thanks to the permanent forest treaty of 1915, which essentially survives unchanged in several sub-laws and ordinances, around a hundred years after its conclusion, Berlin is the European metropolis with the largest forest area.
In the “State Forest Act” of the West Berlin Senate of January 30, 1979, which has been in effect for the whole of Berlin since 1990, the treaty of the century for the preservation of the forest found its final expression in the form of a law. The entire Berlin forest area was declared a protection and recreational forest. The purpose stated in § 1 is linguistically somewhat more modern, the content could come from the 1920s:
"... to preserve the forest because of its importance for the environment, especially for the permanent efficiency of the natural balance, the climate, the water balance, keeping the air clean, the soil moisture, the landscape as well as the recreation of the population, and if possible to increase it and to keep it in order To ensure long-term care. "
literature
- Martin Klees: The Berlin forest ownership through the ages . In: Allgemeine Forstzeitschrift (AFZ). BLV Verlags-Ges., Munich 29.1963, p. 450 ff. (Quotations on the Berlin magistrate and on speculation) ISSN 0002-5860
- Reiner Cornelius: history of forest development . 1st edition. Edited by the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development and Environmental Protection. Monitoring program natural balance. H. 3. Kulturbuchverlag, Berlin 1995. ISSN 0946-3631
- Hermann Kötschke: Forest protection for Greater Berlin . In: Ernst Friedel (Hrsg.): Large Berlin Calendar, Illustrated Yearbook 1913. Publishing house by Karl Siegismund, Royal Saxon Court Bookseller, Berlin 1913, pp. 353-360. (Price per square meter and individual area information p. 359.)
- Richard van der Borght : forest belt . In: Large Berlin Calendar, Illustrated Yearbook 1913. Ed. Ernst Friedel. Verlag von Karl Siegismund Royal Saxon Court Bookseller, Berlin 1913, pp. 213–220 (quotation pp. 212 f.)
- Michael Erbe : Berlin in the Empire (1871–1918) . In: Wolfgang Ribbe (Ed.): History of Berlin . Volume 2. CHBeck, Munich 1987. ISBN 3-406-31591-7 (quote in the introduction, p. 750, entire passage: “After all, it is a lasting merit of the Zweckverband that Berlin - compared to other megacities - has forest areas of unique Expansion. ")
- Hainer Weißpflug: The state forest law is being passed . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 1, 1999, ISSN 0944-5560 , p. 47-49 ( luise-berlin.de ). (Quotation § 1 Landeswaldgesetz, p. 47; source on "most wooded city in Europe", p. 49)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ 100 years ago Berlin's forest was secured . (PDF; 1.1 MB) In: Berliner Waldzeitung , Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment, Berlin 2015, p. 3.
